Empowering the next generation: A very special interview for NAIDOC Week 2025

This week (6-13 July 2025) we’re celebrating National NAIDOC Week. NAIDOC Week is always a special week, but this year even more so because 2025 marks NAIDOC’s 50-year anniversary. That’s 5 decades of honouring and celebrating First Nations voices, culture, resilience and strength.

This year’s NAIDOC Week theme is “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy”. The theme focuses on the path ahead – a path that will be strengthened by young people, the vision of Indigenous communities, and the legacy of Indigenous ancestors.

To celebrate NAIDOC this year we’re sitting down with proud Bidjara woman and emerging First Nations leader, Eboni-Mae Toon.

Eboni-Mae is a Recruitment Partner and In-Work Mentor with CoAct service partner Five Bridges, who deliver an Indigenous specialist program for Workforce Australia. Eboni-Mae is based in Rockhampton, where she uses her lived experience, community connections and passion for advocacy to support some of the region’s most in-need jobseekers. Through her work she has helped to create a significant and powerful shift in the Fitzroy region’s employment landscape.

Known affectionately as “Ebs”, Eboni-Mae’s Bidjara heritage and deep pride in her cultural roots help her not only to build deep connections with customers and employers alike, but helps to foster an environment of compassion, trust and respect where all participants feel understood, supported and safe.

In this interview, we explore how this year’s NAIDOC theme “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy” resonates through Eboni-Mae’s lived experience, aspirations and leadership.

Thank you for your time today Eboni-Mae. Can you start by telling everyone a little bit about your community and cultural background?
I am a proud Bidjara woman, that’s where my mob is from. I live on Darumbal Country in Rockhampton at the moment. I’m a mother of two beautiful boys, who are 16 and 9

I am still actually learning about my background, it’s really hard to find where your mob is from sometimes, having to try and backtrack that, especially for myself – it’s all on my nan’s side. My mum’s side is Aboriginal and South Sea Islander, but on my mum’s side my Elders have passed away, so trying to find that information has been quite hard. Any time I need to I ask questions I go straight to my mum or my auntie

Can you tell us a bit more about your personal journey and professional background?
For me, there’s not really a lot in the sense of professional background. There was a big gap in my employment history because I was raising my sons, so my professional success doesn’t come from work experience, it comes from my lived experience.

With the journey I’ve had and the life I’ve lived, there are barriers I’ve had to overcome to get here so I can understand the barriers of our customers because I’ve lived them too.

I’m no better than the person sitting across the table from me. I was a single mum at 16, I finished high school in year 10, I didn’t have a driver’s license, I didn’t have a job, I came from a family where alcohol dependence was a major thing, so I know what it’s like to be on the other side of the table and I treat everyone like an equal and I respect their challenges because I had them too and they made me who I am today.

And what about your journey with Five Bridges? What made you want to work in this industry?
I started at Five Bridges in September 2023, I was a Mentor up until April this year and I just moved into recruitment services and mentor support. Both of my boys are on the spectrum and so I had a lot of experience having to advocate for them and I think wanting to use those skills to advocate for other people really drove me to this kind of work.

Advocating for and being able to support others who are in a similar situation – like getting to help my mob – is what really attracted me to this work. It’s empowering; that’s the word I’d use. It’s empowering seeing the difference and knowing that my work has contributed to the community in a meaningful way.

And what’s the role of Five Bridges in all this? How are they unique in supporting the community?
I think Five Bridges is unique because they centre Indigenous people, our customers have the option of going to another provider but they choose us because they want to be with someone who is culturally aware, and knows their circumstances and can tailor services to suit them.

Everyone here has cultural awareness training twice a year with Auntie Bev – she works for Five Bridges too – she helps us have that in-depth cultural knowledge. It’s embedded in everything we do and our customers can feel that.

Does your cultural identity or personal experiences influence how you work with and mentor your customers?
It absolutely helps shape how I communicate with others. It helps make my customers feel comfortable. I don’t hide my personal life from them because it helps build relationships and rapport.

Between raising my boys, being a stay-at-home mum for over 10 years and also what I’ve had to endure, it helps them relate. It shows that you know… I was on Centrelink. I was that person as well. It helps them see that I’m a person just like them – I’m no better than them.

Because of that, my customers say that I’m a genuine person. They know I’ve lived it. I’ve gone through similar experiences. I can relate. I think that’s the biggest thing. Having somebody to relate to.

I believe, especially working for a specialist contract, most of our customers feel better when it’s like that. Because if you’re going to be authoritative and tell them what they need to do, they’re not going to engage or want to be a part of anything or try and overcome their barriers. It won’t be sustainable for them. But if you walk alongside them in that journey instead of above them, that’s you can build that relationship and and it continues from there.

What about with your colleagues – how does your background shape how you lead and work with your team?
It’s the same as how I work with customers, you know, we have that mutual support and shared experiences with each other – it’s the best. We can go to each other and have those discussions, if there’s any questions on supporting customers, they know they can always come to me and we can ensure we tailor our services and supports to suit.

Is there anything that’s been passed down from your own Elders that guides you in your work and life in general?
One of the biggest things that I could say in the sense of strength and wisdom passed down to me would be that I’ve always been told to break the cycle.

My mum’s always told me that my experiences are going to make me who I am and that’s what’s going to make me strong. And yes, I didn’t have a very good upbringing, and I went through my own personal barriers and circumstances. But that’s what made me strong – and my mum telling me to break the cycle, so it didn’t recur. I think that’s one of the biggest things that has resonated with me, because I did not want my kids to go through and live the similar or same circumstances that I lived.

Breaking those cycles is what builds strong foundations for our future generations. Then those foundations get passed down, making each generation stronger.

So this year is 50 years of NAIDOC and the theme this year is “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy”. Does that theme resonate with you?
Yeah, it does. We gain strength from the struggles we overcome and hopefully we can all use that strength to try and better ourselves and better the community for the future.

If we can take our struggles and turn them into strength without forgetting who we are and what we know, that’s powerful.

We get so much value and knowledge from listening to our Elders, we need to take what they say and go forward with that knowledge and turn it into a new legacy for a new generation. Creating something new by blending traditional knowledge with modern life and building something better. That’s powerful, and that’s how we can break those generational cycles without forgetting who we are.

We need to keep moving forward for the next generation because there’s still so much work to be done.

What are your hopes and dreams for the next generation? What is your vision for the future?
I’d like for them to hold onto that knowledge that has been passed down to them and work together as a community to make opportunities for everyone.

I’d really like to see more specialised employment services that are for Indigenous people. There are so many areas around Australia that need that support. I’d like it to be developed by and run by Indigenous people and I think it could open up a whole world of new opportunities for our communities.

And is there anything that the broader community could do to support Indigenous leadership?
We all just need to work together. At the end of the day, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, we need to unite and agree on a goal and start moving toward it.

Do you have any advice you’d like to give other First Nations young people?
Talk to your mum, talk to your Elders, educate yourself as much as you can and don’t be shy, have confidence.

Use your voice. Scream it out. There’s so much work to be done and it’s not going to happen if we don’t speak up.

Go for it. That’s what I would say. You’ve got a voice. Use it.

(Disability Employment Services Australia (DES) has now been replaced by Inclusive Employment Services Australia (IEA).